I previously referred to the 2008 statement from the USCCB entitled Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship. I referred to it rather derogatorily, because the document itself seems to me very vague and capable of radically disparate interpretations. Certainly, others have commented that it is so. In fact, it was so confusingly worded, that our local ordinaries, Bishop Farrell of Dallas and Bishop Vann of Ft. Worth, felt obliged to issue a clarifying statement of their own which stated far more clearly that abortion is an over-riding evil that must be rejected out of hand, and that Catholics can never vote for a pro-abort, no matter how appealing their other beliefs may be.

Given that, there has apparently been an ongoing series of talks given regarding ‘Forming Consciences’ here in the Dallas Diocese. The second of 3 talks will be given on February 2 and St. Rita’s in Dallas, entitled ‘Answering Your Tough Questions on Faithful Citizenship.’ I doubt my tough questions, such as, “how do the bishops who wrote this thing plan on explaining it to God at their particular judgment?”, will be answered. But who knows, maybe I can sneak out and attend, leaving my poor wife at home with 97 screaming children in our broken down hut with no running water, the outhouse 90 yards away, the snow 11 ft deep, and the electricity turned off for lack of payment? Ahhhh……a man can dream…….

Disregard the last sentence.

Join us Thursday, February 2 at 7 p.m. for

“Applying Catholic Teaching to Major Issues: A Summary of Policy Positions of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops”

presented by:

Most Reverend Edward J. BurnsBishop of the Diocese of Juneau, Alaska & former U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Presenter on Faithful Citizenship

This is the second of a three-session series on Faithful Citizenship as we faithfully discern and prepare for the Texas primaries. Please save the new date for Part 3 on February 20, featuring Jennifer Allmon of the Texas Catholic Conference (location TBA). [My personal note – I don’t like the Texas Catholic Conference. I don’t like Allmon’s seeming leftism. This one could be interesting. I wonder if the speakers will attempt to water down the joint statement?]

When Sonoma County Pro-Life advertised its annual Rally for Life held last Sunday, it promised that its keynote speaker — Santa Rosa Bishop Robert Vasa — “is sure to challenge and inspire us all.” Bishop Vasa did not let them down.

Any government leader, particularly those who claim to be Christian, who claim to be pro-choice, is unworthy of public office,” Bishop Vasa told the rally at Old Courthouse Square in Santa Rosa on Jan. 22. “Absolutely unworthy and absolutely unfit for public office.”

Politicians who support abortion are “as guilty of abortion as those who choose it themselves,” he said. And Roe v. Wade, said Bishop Vasa, was an “illicit and invalid” decision.

Because of its pro-abortion policies, said Bishop Vasa, the U.S. is no longer “the land of the free and the home of the brave. It’s a land of the imprisoned and the home of the cowards.”

The bishop’s remarks, reported the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, brought cheers from a crowd of about 100 people who gathered in the afternoon rain to hear his speech.

“Vasa suggested such leaders who publicly hold such a position shouldn’t accept communion at Mass,” reported the Press Democrat. “He also said they could be excommunicated, or banished from the church through their actions.” [I pray the “suggestion” was actually a firm demand]

“In some ways, they excommunicate themselves,” the Press Democrat quoted the bishop as saying in an interview following his speech. [Uh….it’s either clear that they do, or they don’t. You can’t be excommunicated partially. Anyone who takes a public stand against the Doctrine of the Faith on such a clearly defined issue places themselves outside the bounds of the Faith – excommunicate, anathema sit!]

Well, yes, but “self-excommunication” doesn’t have the same weight, the same alleviation of public scandal given by pro-abort or other apostate ‘Catholics,’ as does a formal excommunication. And it’s rather easy to say these things, and rather harder to implement them, when there will be real and imagined consequences. I have previously held Bishop Vasa in high regard, but heard a few things regarding him which were somewhat disconcerting. It appears his former Diocese of Baker, OR is not in great shape, and wasn’t a wonderland of Catholic orthodoxy when he was there. But perhaps I have an exaggerated view of the power of a bishop and don’t appreciate how hard it is to swim against a stream of modernist, heterodox staff, clergy, and laity.

Anyways, it’s still good stuff. We need more like this, much more. Perhaps this contraceptive mandate will be a wake-up call to the episcopate. I pray that it is.

There has been several truly disturbing news stories of late, of lesbian couples obtaining children and then performing what I think most people would consider to be horrifying experiments on them. The couples claim that they are simply attempting to let their sons (no girls involved, naturally, for we all know that girls are born perfect, with male characteristics being extremely unsavory and worthy of destruction) determine their own gender without the pressure of social convention and societal norms. I cannot imagine the devastation that is being wrought, or how this abuse can be allowed to continue:

It’s a boy! And he’s five. Beck Laxton, 46, and partner Kieran Cooper, 44, have spent half the decade concealing the gender of their son, Sasha.

“I wanted to avoid all that stereotyping,” Laxton said in an interview with the Cambridge News. “Stereotypes seem fundamentally stupid. Why would you want to slot people into boxes?”

Sasha dresses in clothes he likes — be it a hand-me-downs from his sister or his brother. The big no-no’s are hyper-masculine outfits like skull-print shirts and cargo pants. [So, the hyper-feminine is in, but the hyper-masculine is out. Got it. But ‘Sasha’ is not being led to reject his own gender, no…….]In one photo, sent to friends and family, Sasha’s dressed in a shiny pink girl’s swimsuit. “Children like sparkly things,” says Beck. “And if someone thought Sasha was a girl because he was wearing a pink swimming costume, then what effect would that have? ” [No, they don’t. Little girls like sparkly things.]

Sasha’s also not short on dolls, though Barbie is also off limits. “She’s banned because she’s horrible,” Laxton says in the Cambridge interview.

On a macro level she hopes her son sets an example for other parents and makes them reconsider buying their own sons trucks [yes, for heaven’s sake, don’t let him have what he likes] or forcing their daughters into tights. She’s seen how those consumer trappings affect how and who kids play with in the sandbox. [Consumer ‘trappings’ has nothing to do with. Boys and girls are as different as night and day]

SIX children are being turned into real-life Peter Pans because parents say the kids are unsure about their gender.

They have been prescribed drugs by an NHS clinic to delay puberty so later gender-change ops will be easier to carry out.

A seventh child begins the medication in April and more will start later. Critics say it is damaging because up to eight out of ten youngsters who think they are the wrong sex will change their minds after reaching puberty.

Thus, Britain. My feeling is that these women have, consciously or not, communicated to their sons that men are heinous beasts to be despised, and done subtle psychological warfare to mislead their sons into feeling they are attracted to feminine things. I’m the father of five daughters and a son, and I can state without question that he has always had obviously masculine characteristics and does all kinds of ‘boy’ things. Even with all the girl toys and the example of his many sisters, my son has always, from a very, very young age, acted like a boy, being more aggressive, playing differently, and having completely different interests. This is not exactly a revelation. Such “gender dysphoria” was unheard of or exceedingly rare until the last few decades, when leftist feminist theory began its drive to subvert and/or destory masculinity and force a kind of Frankenstein equality on the sexes.

The kids, the poor, poor kids. Transexuals have a rate of suicide attempts that is shockingly hight – some 5 to 10 times higher than the average population. Drug abuse and sexual promiscuity are rampant. Individual tales of such savage abuse are heart-breaking – one man raised as a girl committed suicide in his late 30s after a lifetime of depression and financial problems.

None of this is surprising. Anyone with a lick of sense can tell that raising a child “gender neutral” is frequently done not because of any confusion on the part of the child, but as an unthinkable project of very, very sick parents. Many of the present couples engaged in this abuse are lesbian. It doesn’t take a PhD in psychology to understand why lesbians would be interested in raising their son as a ‘gender neutral’ project that winds up a tortured, disfigured “female” adult. The bigger question is, why would society and the government tolerate this abuse? How can these people be allowed to keep their children and literally ruin their lives through this horrific mal-treatment? What kind of monsters are we, as a culture, to tolerate this?

UPDATE: A commenter is complaining that I am misrepresenting the situation because one of the children in question in the 2nd link above is from a heterosexual couple. Fair enough, yes, even heterosexual couples can ruin their child’s life through insane manipulation. But most of the cases in Britain are associated with lesbian couples, and statistical data shows that no child is more likely to present as gay as an adult than a child raised by lesbian parents (and this is an order of magnitude difference, not a slight difference). I saw a further breakdown of that data at one point which showed that male children of lesbian parents had the single highest likelihood of self-identifying as gay as adults than any other combination of gay/straight parents with male/female children. Unfortunately, I can’t find that right now.

I added this as an update because there won’t be any point discoursing with the offended commenter.

I know it’s a hassle to stop down and listen to an audio only file. I know we’re all busy. But stop reading my blog, at least today. Instead, listen to this, the best, most comprehensive deconstruction of the entire contraception-abortion complex and the devastating complicity that protestants and far too many Catholics, including almost all bishops over the past 40 years, have played in creating it:

This priest ties together 80 years of history to show precisely how we have arrived exactly at the point we are at, today, where the federal government has a knife to the Church’s throat and is forcing the formal adoption of contraceptive use through medical insurance plans. It’s way better than anything I could write. It’s material you won’t hear anywhere else, given by a speaker who is sublime. Do yourself a favor, take 38 minutes at lunch, and listen to the entire sermon. I believe you will be most glad that you did!

Some significant quotes that bookend the sermon:

Since a week ago last Saturday, we can no longer expect them to defend the law of God. These sects will work out the very logic of their ways, and in 50 or 100 years there will be only the [Catholic] Church and paganism. We will be left to fight the battle alone, and we will.
–Then-father Fulton J. Sheen, March 1931, reacting to the United States Federal Council of Churches of Christ endorsement of the use contraception by married couples

Is it imperative that the entire Catholic community in the United States come to realize the grave threats to the Church’s public moral witness presented by a radical secularism which finds increasing expression in the political and cultural spheres. The seriousness of these threats needs to be clearly appreciated at every level of ecclesial life.
–Pope Benedict 16th, January 19, 2012, to the Archbishop of Washington DC and the bishops of the surrounding areas

Fr. Jason Cargo is a local priest we got to know somewhat when he was at St. Elizabeth Seton in Plano. He’s a really good young priest, who definitely has a burning desire to sacrifice himself in his apostolate and help guide souls to salvation. I have complained of late about the lack of emphasis placed on contraception by our diocese, from various priests up to the bishop. You just very rarely hear about it. There is a parish way out in the NE part of the Diocese where it is addressed and condemned regularly, but aside from that, I have a hard time recalling many other condemations of its use, except perhaps very brief mention in passing as at the ordinations last year (and even that, I’m not clear on).

Commenter ‘Dallas’ pointed out that Fr. Cargo gave a sermon condemning both abortion and its evil progenitor, contraception, at Sunday Mass at his parish in Corsicana (note the location). It’s a sort of ‘meet people where they’re at’ argument based on first principles, probably the very kind and merciful approach that should be taken at the beginning of a long process of shaking people out of their lethargy, turning them away from this very grave sin, and, hopefully, walking them into a full Catholic understanding on the gift of sexuality and its place in marriage, always open to procreation.

I felt the need to point this out, both to give Fr. Cargo some attention (from a quarter he would probably not prefer), and also to point out that I was perhaps a bit sweeping in my earlier condemnations. But, then again, this is one priest in a small parish on the edge of the Diocese. If you look for orthodox priests, they tend to be there – out on the edge of the Diocese. I have admired and had great respect for Fr. Cargo for some time, but his sermons (is this the sermon he gave at the Cathedral for the March for Life?) are not going to have the same impact and weight as a sermon by the bishop. That is where we must have more leadership on this topic. A US delegate to the Pontifical Commission on the New Evangelization stated recently that contraception is THE issue that is making the Church ineffective, and completely hampering either these new evangelization efforts or even the basic implementation of VII. It is THE cancer that is eating away at the Church, and we are decades past desperately needing better – heck, ANY – episcopal leadership on this subject.

I’m not copying any of Fr. Cargo’s sermon because I haven’t obtained any permission, and don’t want to cause him any problems. I’m sort of, uhhhhhh………….’controversial’ in the Diocese.